Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Dumpling

Apple dumpling is a pastry-wrapped apple boiled in water, served with sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Dumpling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Roll out the crust large enough to cover an apple.

  2. Peel and core the apple, then fill the core with a little sugar and cinnamon.

  3. Wrap the crust around the apple and tie it in a small cloth.

  4. Repeat for as many apples as desired.

Cook and serve

  1. Place the wrapped apples in boiling water and boil for one hour.

  2. Serve with sweet sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + potatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Apple + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apple
Provides the fruit filling that softens and turns sweet during boiling.
Crust (potato or short)
Encloses the apple and forms a tender wrapper as it cooks in water.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the filling and helps flavour the cooked apple.

The step that matters

Wrapping the crust around the apple. The crust must fully enclose the apple with no gaps, otherwise water can seep in and the filling can become soggy or leak out during the hour of boiling.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More apple dumpling recipes

Baked 22Sauce 5Rolled 5Steamed 5Rice 4 See all 55 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesDeep-Fried Potato BallsDeep-Fried Potato Balls119 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipes